


Day Thirteen: Fear/Trapped

by Euphorion



Series: Writober [13]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Magic, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-23 15:36:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8333032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euphorion/pseuds/Euphorion
Summary: Suga straightened up from writing something, and Kageyama saw Daichi quickly shift his eyes away from staring. Suga ran a hand through his hair. “It’s bizarre,” he said. “My first thought was that someone had cursed you or something, enchanted you, but it’s not like you changed all at once. It’s like this—whatever, this bird is inside you and something is trying to help it come out.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> A continuation of the plot thread that began in [day four](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8211802) and continued in [day six](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8247944) and [day eight](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8257409). I had a nice number thing going on there for a while but oh well.
> 
> My fave kagehina is very very slow kagehina so this is basically just gen.

“How many times has this happened?” Suga asked, sounding fascinated.

Kageyama watched him nervously as he walked around him in a circle, occasionally stopping to mark something on the floor in chalk. It’d been weird enough to find him here with his cauldron full of potion and his arms full of Daichi, weirder to see him tow a shifting ball of smoke out of the room like a balloon and release it to the sky, but now Kageyama was the subject of his scrutiny. It was worse than having him watch him practice, because he couldn’t even do anything to try and impress him, he just had to. Sit. 

He scratched the side of his face. His skin itched to sprout feathers. “Um,” he said, “three times. Once it was just my hand, and then another time my face, and then. When Hinata saw me.”

Hinata—sitting next to him, although about four feet away so as not to interfere with Suga’s workings—nodded vigorously. “His face was all—bent, and feathery, and his eyes were super scary, and his whole arm was like a wing!”

“My eyes were not scary,” Kageyama said sullenly.

Hinata grinned at him. “I think it’s cool!”

Kageyama doubted that very much, but he appreciated the lie anyway. He sighed.

“And you said it doesn’t hurt?” Daichi asked from where he was leaning against the doorframe. He seemed, finally, to have gotten a little less red.

Kageyama shook his head. “It feels _weird_ , but there’s no pain.”

Suga straightened up from writing something, and Kageyama saw Daichi quickly shift his eyes away from staring. Suga ran a hand through his hair. “It’s bizarre,” he said. “My first thought was that someone had cursed you or something, enchanted you, but it’s not like you changed all at once. It’s like this—whatever, this bird is inside you and something is trying to help it come out.”

Hinata went wide-eyed. “Woah,” he said. “Cool. Do we all have birds inside us? Can you let them out?”

“Why do you want that?” Kageyama demanded. “You wanna be some kind of monster like me?”

Hinata made a face at him. “I want cool wing arms.”

Kageyama clenched his teeth. Didn’t he get it? This wasn’t fun, this wasn’t _cool_ , he—he couldn’t control this, there was a whole other mind sitting alongside his own that wanted things, wanted to look through his eyes and change his body around, wanted to eat things and feel things and _live_ in a way so alien to Kageyama it gave him vertigo—

He could feel his bones shifting, hollowing, feel his shoulders shifting upward and inward. His teeth thinned, his trembling lips vanishing away upward, his mouth and nose slipping forward and free of his skin. He took a breath, trying to get a grasp on himself, his boy-self, his real self, but his body shook him off. The choice was the tangled anxious discomfort and anger of a boy or the simple curiosity of the crow, and his body knew which one it preferred to feel.

His crow body shook the last of the stress from his feathers, hopped around in a small circle, and then tried to flap over and explore the fascinating contents of that cauldron. His mind was turned upside down and inside out, his sight split disorientingly in half. He managed to get a few feet before he ran face-first into an invisible, curved wall and fluttered back to the floor.

Suga—huge and looming—knelt next to him. “Huh,” he said. “Seems like it’s triggered when you get mad.”

“Better separate the two of you immediately,” Daichi joked, gesturing between Kageyama and Hinata.

Hinata, however, shifted closer. “Kageyama?” he asked, wondering. “Is that really you?”

Kageyama’s human brain wanted to snap, _who the hell else would it be, you stupid dumbass_ , but his tongue was weird and clumsy in his mouth and he just let out a harsh, derisive squawk.

Hinata laughed, his eyes squinting up small, and held out a hand to him. “That’s you alright.”

Kageyama considered pecking his hand, but refrained, deciding to just nudge at it with his beak. He wasn’t really mad. It—none of this—was Hinata’s fault, and he had brought him here to help him. He just.

“He seems to still have his same personality, but he clearly also has the instincts and mannerisms of a crow,” Suga said. He cocked his head. “It’s an appropriate animal for him. Crows are abrasive, but they’re some of the smartest and most precise creatures in the animal kingdom.”

Kageyama was glad that crows couldn’t blush, but only until he realized that the same urge had him craning his head around to preen his wing-feathers. 

“Aw,” Daichi said, coming up to stand next to Suga. “You embarrassed him.”

Suga chuckled, and then crossed to his backpack. “I haven’t done this spell much,” he said, “but I think I can do something to try and see if he is being changed by something external, and maybe track whoever’s doing this.” He retrieved a few things from his bag. “Kageyama, maybe better if you change back for it.”

Kageyama nodded his head—a weird, alien motion—and tried.

Nothing happened.

He hopped another circle, settling and resettling his feathers, and tried again. Tried to be human, think about having fingers and toes and hair and ears and thoughts and speech. He tried to picture his body—pale, thin, never quite enough. Arms and legs he trusted but a heart he did not. He tried to pull it back on like a uniform. 

The bird in him balked, squawked, flicked its wings in disdain. Why, it seemed to say, would you want to be _that_ when you could be _this?_ Humans are always discontent with themselves, always attempting to change and do things they are not naturally capable of. Why continue to _try_ when you could just _be?_

“Kageyama,” Hinata said, and Kageyama cocked his head to regard him fully with one of his eyes. His vision was so much better as a bird. Even from several feet away he could see every eyelash on Hinata’s wide eyes, the flecks of gold in his irises, the faint freckles across his nose. He looked worried. “C’mon, turn back.”

Kageyama croaked. There was a part of him that was terrified, a flame of pure human fear that burned in his mind. But it was hard to be mentally afraid when he felt none of the physical sensations of fear. His bird-heart beat quick, but strong. His feathers were clean and straight. His eyes were clear.

From the point of view of the bird, everything was fine. He was calm. He’d won. The human fear would fade as he got more used to this new world. Now if only he could get out of this stupid invisible cage—as soon as he could fly, really fly, he would never want to go back.

He fluttered over to peck repeatedly at the edge of the circle, his beak snapping and snapping against something where there should be nothing. Again, again, again. Like breaking the outside shell of a nut to get at the sweet meat inside.

Suga whistled softly to himself. “Well,” he said. “That’s not good at all.”


End file.
